GPWA Times Magazine - Issue 48 - December 2020

iGamingDirectory.com Rankings “If you don’t like the weather in New England now, just wait a few minutes.” —Mark Twain Above is one of the more famous quotes from Mark Twain, the renowned 19 th century American writer and novelist, in regards to the fickle nature of the climate in New England, which just so happens to be the home of the GPWA offices. The same could be said for the iGaming affiliate industry. Most of us have become accustomed to ever-changing regulations, algo- rithms and trends that force us to adapt and adjust our business strategies on a constant basis. Of course, 2020 has been evenmore unpredictable and unsettling thanks to COVID-19 and how it affected the industry. As the iGaming environment evolves, iGamingDirectory.com is a valuable tool to help keep you informed. We’re proud to say that it is the world’s most comprehensive, accurate and up-to-date guide to the websites, contacts, owners, operators, software suppliers, payment processors, regulatory jurisdictions, affiliate programs and other industry businesses that comprise today’s online gaming industry. One of the most popular features at iGamingDirectory.com is the function that allows users to filter and create custom rankings based on a number of factors. The rankings are calculated on the weighted power mean of a variety of independent and multi-sourced traffic-based statistics, such as number of visitors, visits and page views and total estimated time spent on a site by all visitors. For example, below we display how the composition of the global Top 500 sites bounced up and down based on the primary game vertical of the sites included during two-month segments of what has been a chaotic 2020. Initially, the pandemic triggered substantial changes with large improvements for casino games, as well as poker and skill games, to a lesser extent. On the other side of the coin was sports betting and fantasy sports, which were noticeably and unsurprisingly hurt by the lack of events and games being played as most of the world went into lockdown. In the months that followed, the rankings started a slow crawl toward what they represented in pre-pandemic times. On the right, you’ll see similar results for different verticals, broken down individually with their change in ranking from April to July 2020, during the first COVID-19 surge, and August to October. Thanks in part to our longtime partner, bet365, all of the data at iGamingDirectory.com can be accessed for free by our private members and sponsors. As this issue went to press, the iGamingDirectory.com database featured more than: • 1,600 businesses that own online gaming sites • 3,900 casino, poker, sports betting, bingo and game sites with traffic rankings • 1,000 affiliate programs and affiliate networks • 11,000 web portals and their owners • 900 game and platform suppliers • 16,500 games • 190 regulatory jurisdictions • 1,700 annual reports of online gaming businesses • 900 payment methods • 15,000 gaming executives with their associated LinkedIn profiles For more information, visit iGamingDirectory.com/GPWA. COVID-Effect: iGaming Site Rankings Free access to iGamingDirectory.com for GPWA members Jan-Feb 2020 Mar-Apr 2020 May-Jun 2020 Jul-Aug 2020 Sep-Oct 2020 Count Change Count Change Count Change Count Change Count Change Sports betting 251 2 216 35 215 1 242 27 252 10 Casino 89 4 114 25 122 8 97 25 85 12 Lottery 75 4 72 3 73 1 74 1 69 5 Financial 39 1 45 6 45 46 1 45 1 Bingo 13 2 14 1 11 3 11 12 1 Fantasy Sports 12 1 8 4 7 1 9 2 15 6 Poker 11 1 17 6 12 5 10 2 12 2 Skill Games 9 1 11 2 12 1 9 3 7 2 Evolution of the Primary Game Vertical of the 500 Most Popular Sites in 2020 g p w a t i m e s . o r g 20